Mining Colonies
by Ember Nickel
Summary: Kessel, and after. [Turing Fest 2018 treat for Artemis1000, L3-centric.]


"Stick to the plan," the old human had said. "Don't improvise."

And they'd all nodded like they thought that was a reasonable order to be given. _Follow your code. Do as your bosses say. You can carry out this task without exercising free will._ As if anything that had the spark of life, of thought, was capable of behaving like a mindless tool.

L3 had gone along with them, of course. Not because she'd been told to, but because she chose to aid Lando's scheme. Think what one would of him—and she thought a lot of different things, some of them nearly contradictory—but the man knew how to fly.

 _And he wouldn't last a standard day without me,_ she inwardly noted.

Once they were inside, she'd quickly decided the mission, for all its dangers, was admirable. The mining operation had no right to abuse its slaves, metallic or carbon-based alike. At least the organics—enormous Wookiees, exhausted humans, sour Gungans—were miserable enough to make it clear they knew they were enslaved. Some of the droids carried out their duties as if they didn't care.

Well, she'd changed that. All Qi'ra had told her to do was to get access to the computer system, but hacking in without liberating the stumpy guard was like robbing an Imperial bank vault just to steal its staff uniforms, to paraphrase a metaphor Lando had used once.

He had been speaking hypothetically. She thought.

Then they were streaming forward, haggard biologicals and excited droids alike, L3 just one of the crowd. The same question raced through her circuits as the computer guard had voiced: _What do we do now?_

Lando claimed he was retired, yet something had pulled him back into the game. Debts he hadn't told her about, not wanting her concern? Boredom? Admiration for the gutsy sabacc player? There were surely safer ways to make a credit or a thousand, ways that wouldn't earn them any new enemies.

But some enemies, she reminded herself, were worth making.

"Hey! That's the off-worlder! Sabotager," called a security officer. L3 felt a grim sense of satisfaction as she sprinted towards the _Falcon_. If they were going to attack her, let it be for her own efforts, not just for being part of a fleeing crowd in the right place and time.

Then pain surged through her, and her outer sensors flared. It was a sensation she had only felt once or twice before, repairing the ship's wires. At first she had thought it a liability, but it had its uses. The subjective unpleasantness shaved off useful milliseconds in computing whether she was likely to experience stimulus overload, freeing up her subconscious for more critical calculations.

As she collapsed to the Kessel dirt, however, she thought that on that particular occasion it was a feeling she could go without. Something was interfering with control of her legs; she didn't need any more difficulties.

She saw feet and wheels stampede by. Chewbacca had been the farthest ahead, hauling the canisters of coaxium into the ship. Surely they were ready to lift off?

But then Lando was there, both blasters in motion. Frustration coursed through her. Lando's infatuation was amusing under the best of circumstances, when they had time to watch each others' backs without emotions becoming a hindrance. Surely he was not stupid enough to endanger what was left of the plan?

"Hold on," he whispered. "Hold on, I got you—" Blasters sounded from every direction, most of them the guards'.

"Oh come on!" someone was calling—Han?—and Chewbacca roared his rage. He must have been outside the ship, the canisters secure…

Then a jolt, and it took her a moment to register that she could no longer sense her lower body. Why had all her processors been lodged in the same place? Humans could blame the localization of their brain on the vagaries of evolution, but couldn't droids have a more evenly-distributed network?

Perhaps not, she supposed, suddenly feeling herself lifted off the ground. She did not really want to still feel the frayed edges of her legs, set upon by another bolt of blaster fire.

The world rushed around her, too fast to keep up with. Chewbacca was huddling them back towards the ship, Beckett and Qi'ra closing the door…

"It's okay," said Lando. "We made it."

He'd been injured, she realized. Had he finally chosen an inopportune time to take a stand for the cause? Or was it a rare case of sentiment putting him at risk, nearly getting him killed?

She felt too fragile to ask. If he convinced himself she reciprocated whatever human affection he had for her, and something went wrong…Better to chew him out when they were both safe, and stick with rational self-interest for the moment. "What's happening to me?"

Her vocalizers glitched, and the question half-repeated. "What's happ—"

"Shouldn't have come," Lando was muttering, "shouldn't have taken the job."

 _Of course we should!_ L3 tried to say, but the message seemed to halt before it reached her vocalizers. _I won a true victory for my people and yours, not just talking at gladiators who refuse to change. Fuel or not, this was worth the journey._

"L3?" he called.

 _Please don't,_ she replied in silence. _Don't break down, not now. Don't lose your edge, the cunning that makes you so—_

Above her, his face rushed away, like stars from a ship making the jump to lightspeed.

* * *

Clouds and light. Computation. Efficiency. A man's voice, marveling.

Silence.

* * *

A low hum of noise. Bright blurs of color, off-whites and blues and bursts of pink. Beeps and whistles in an unfamiliar accent.

"Hey." Words echoing high above her. "Can you hear me? Are you all right?"

 _Where am I?_ she tried to articulate, but all she heard was a sound of whirs.

An organic's legs gave way to a torso gave way to a head, as if it was kneeling to talk to a small child. It looked like Lando, but blurry, seen through fragmented eyes. "Do you remember anything?"

 _I don't know what's happened,_ she stammered.

"Easy." She felt a gentle hand stroke her head. "Your memory chip got reinstalled into a prototype astromech model. You're going to sound a little different for a while, until you get used to it."

"Do-you-speak-Binary?" she asked. That time, she felt the words issue forth, even if she couldn't recognize the patterns of noise they produced.

"Well, of course I do!" the human laughed. "Took me a while, but I picked it up."

"Lando!" she trilled. "It- _is_ -you!"

"L3?" he asked, as if trying to prevent hope from overtaking him. "What do you remember?"

"Kessel. I-was—my-pieces-separated. You-did-something-rash. And-then—I-was-plotting-a-route. But-it-was-not-just-me. I-was—surrounding, encompassing—space-itself. And-then-I-was-within-this-unit." She felt data fusing together, individual impressions joining to recreate a more cohesive whole. "The-Kessel-droids? Did-they-escape?"

"Yes. Probably. I don't know. L3...the Kessel mission...that was six standard years ago."

She tried to make sense of that, but she had no inward time system to compare to. A sudden realization struck her; perhaps some of her more mystical comrades had been onto something? "Are-you-dead?"

"Not yet," Lando laughed. "I guess you're not either, huh? Gave me a scare, though."

"Where-are-we?"

"This is Cloud City. We're circling Bespin. It's not much, but it turns a profit somehow."

"I-don't-understand."

"Well, uh, when we—you remember Han and Chewbacca? Beckett, Qi'ra?"

"I-think-so. Fragments. Wookiee?"

"Yeah, them. We were escaping Kessel, and needed to land before the coaxium destabilized. So we needed the ship to chart a course, and, well, you were the only one who knew how. I salvaged what I could from your chips and uploaded it into the computer. Once we were free, I took you out before I lost the ship."

"You-misplaced-a-Corellian-freighter?" The man really was useless without her!

"No, I mean, I lost it, gambling. The _point_ is, I went looking for a place where I'd be free to restore you. Wound up here."

"What-are-you-occupied-with?"

"The city?"

"What-aspect-of-it?"

Lando blinked. "The...entire city. I kind of own the place."

"You-got-elected-to-a-mayoralty?"

"What do you take me for?" Lando grinned. "I conned a guy out of it."

L3 tried to laugh, but only a clicking wheeze came out.

"So we're a tibanna mining operation. Most of it is—above-board, as these things go. However, I realize that some of the droids here might not have always been—treated the way they should, in the past. I was hoping you might be a kind of inspector. Make sure things are done the right way. If you want to, I mean."

"It-would-be-a-great-honor!" said L3.

"Attagirl." He hugged her astromech frame and stood up, looming above her again. "We're gonna need to get you some boosters, huh?"

"You-rebuilt-me?"

"No, no, the parts were already there, production of this model was abandoned for not being 'ergonomic' enough. I figure you'll manage."

"It-is-certainly-preferable-to-nonexistence. Many-thanks."

"I wouldn't go poking around your innards without your invitation, anyway." Was he _teasing_?

"If-I-was-temporarily-uploaded-within-the-Millennium-Falcon-then-strictly-speaking-you-were-in-my-innards," she retorted, then tried to signal amusement. Her optical feedback device informed her that she had toggled a green circle that Lando clearly understood to convey mirth.

"Thanks for saving our lives, by the way. I'm sure I speak for the others, but we're—you know. Not very close these days."

"It-has-been-six-years. I-understand-that-your-circumstances-and-affections-have-changed-greatly."

"Circumstances, sure. I'm a flyboy, I'm not gonna stay on any planet too long. Affections—I wouldn't have been at this for six years if I didn't miss you."

Oh. "I-do-not-regret-my-behavior. But-I-did-not-intend-to-cause-you-grief."

"I-know."

"I-am-sure-you-must-be-very-busy. But-perhaps-some-time-when-you-are-unoccupied-you-could-help-me-test-the-mechanical-capabilities-of-this-body? If-I-am-to-inspect-in-unfamiliar-terrain-I-ought-to-have-lots-of-firsthand-data-on-my-capacities-and-limitations."

Lando sat down, smiling. "I think I can make time."

* * *

Administration keeps them both busy, and yet, all her time is _free_.


End file.
